It all started with a sad day, a walk of hope.
I wrote about it here.
It ended with a bumper crop of passion fruit, not a bad outcome, at all.
That passion fruit I planted is back, with a vengeance.
The thing is, it moved.
It moved underneath the fence, to the sunnier, southern side.
My neighbor’s side.
Ordinarily, this would be a bad thing.
Ordinarily, this would mean my passion fruit would fall victim to that emblem of suburban weaponry, the weedeater. What neighbor would tolerate their suburban fence and yard being overwhelmed by a fast-growing, nondescript, tendril-y monster of a vine?
Fortunately, my neighbor.
As it turns out, she not only tolerates this invader, she has adopted it with, shall we say, a passion?
Over the course of several weeks, she carefully weeded out the narrow strip of soil between the fence and the driveway, dug out the gravelly old soil, supplemented the strip with topsoil, and festooned the fence with a series of quirky, found trellises, all without disturbing the slumbering roots of the wayward passion fruit vines.
As the new growth has emerged, she sprays the vines with a Dawn dishwashing concoction to keep away the bugs.
She tries to rescue the passionflower vine babies that erupt from the cracks in the middle of the driveway.
Then she ordered packets of FIVE NEW types of passion fruit vines to grow along the rest of the fence. And more fences.
Oh, yeah. This is getting out of hand.
Fortunately for us, the idea of being overwhomped with a kudzu of passionflower vines is not only tolerable to us, it makes a faraway expression come over our faces as we dreamily contemplate the things we could make out of passionflower fruit: ice cream, sorbet, and cheesecake, jams and butters, syrups and cordials.
Yes, we are going to share the fruit. It is a folie à deux, a shared madness.
The new varieties are Blue, Tumbo, Lilikoi, Sweet Calabash, and Giant Granadilla. Keep your fingers crossed I can get these puppies to germinate.
If you share our crazy.
–Daisy
Never raised passion fruit ,
I have 2 hanging planters 1 with bell perrer plant in it the other has 3 tomaatoe plants not sure the tomatoes plants will make it
In another container I have 2 tomatoes plants which are doing very well and then also have two planters with tomato plants hopefully I will get some bounty out of all these plants
Passion fruit? Did you say passion fruit? I love passion fruit!! It makes the tastiest drink ever! In Sri Lanka where I am from they have a passion fruit cordial. Heavily laced with sugar but all you need is just a little, mix with water and crushed ice on a hot summer day. This is heaven. But I have spent countless months squeezing passion fruit, straining the black seeds and making my own drink at my grand father’s estate. That’s what us kids did during an idyllic childhood.
Daisy you are funny. This story was very well written. Adopted it with a passion. LOL. Good one.
CV–Can you believe I’d never tasted a passion fruit until I grew it myself? I was bowled over, they are so good. A bit weird to eat, but so worth it. Was the drink you made just the juice or did you add something to it? Did you use any special equipment to strain it? I’m curious about stuff like that. And thank you for your kind words.
Somehow missed the article on passion fruit…..just moved to new home and will be adding new plants. I live in South Louisiana, will they grow here.
Olivia–Yes, I imagine they will love LA.